Here’s an explanation of how accounting turned an investment banking loss of £160m into a profit of £3.65bn. And so made “hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of staff at the state supported Royal Bank of Scotland group (RBS)” eligible “for bonuses totalling about £1.5bn”.

Wow!

The moral of the story: be sceptical, very sceptical of the headline financial numbers. And read the footnotes cynically.